Only tough luck separated them when Maddy drove Graham Wagg who diverted the ball on to the stumps to run out his former Warwickshire team-mate. West-wood departed for 44 (67 balls, four fours).

Ian Bell helped Maddy add 69 but only the captain dominated. He swept, straight-drove and chipped off his legs with aplomb on his way to 117 from 108 balls with 16 fours and a six.

Shorn of eight overs, everyone else just swiped and scampered, most efficiently Tim Groenewald who smashed 20 from nine balls, incuding three sixes.

Derbyshire faced a stiff task but not stiff enough to justify a spate of early slogs which did for Stephen Stubbings, Phil Weston and Jamie Pipe.

Simon Katich connected with a few but also holed out recklessly, although great credit goes to Jimmy Anyon.

His catch at long-on, running backwards and to his left while judging the ball in the swirling wind, was brilliant.

Ian Harvey, stitched up by partner Greg Smith, was run out and although Smith partially redeemed himself with a half-century he, like Katich, failed in an attempt to collar Jim Troughton's tidy spin.

In late-afternoon sunlight, Wagg launched a few blows in a losing cause as two rainbows arched magnificently over this famous, centuries-old venue, unique in British sport for having once been simultaneously home to a race-course, a first-class cricket club and a Football League club.

A proud claim. But it was the Bears who climbed proudly to the top.

And never in all those centuries of sport at Derby was there a moment of more dazzling sporting brilliance than Anyon's catch.